Widow angry at Finucane review plan

The widow of murdered Northern Ireland solicitor Pat Finucane has said she feels "angry" and "insulted" after David Cameron told her he is proposing a QC-led review of her husband's case.

PUBLISHED: 18:01, Tue, Oct 11, 2011

The family of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, including his widow Geraldine, son John and daughter [PA]

The widow of murdered Northern Ireland solicitor Pat Finucane has said she feels "angry" and "insulted" after David Cameron told her he is proposing a QC-led review of her husband's case.

After meeting the Prime Minister in Number 10, Geraldine Finucane told reporters the whole family is "very disappointed" and will not support the initiative.

The Finucanes want a full independent inquiry into the loyalist shooting in 1989. There have been persistent claims of security force collusion with the killers.

Speaking in Downing Street, Mrs Finucane said: "I am so angry and so insulted by being brought to Downing Street to hear what the Prime Minister had on offer.

"He is offering a review. He wants a QC to read the papers in my husband's case and that is how he expects to reach the truth. All of us are very upset and very disappointed."

She added that she was "so angry with the Prime Minister that I actually called a halt to the meeting".

Mrs Finucane said she could not understand how "yet another review of papers" could be justified. "The family will not be involved at all. The QC will tell us everything and we are to accept that as a means of getting to the truth," she added.

Tony Blair promised the family that the allegations would be investigated but no inquiry was set up, while retired Canadian judge Peter Cory, asked by the British and Irish governments to examine allegations of collusion surrounding the Finucane and other controversial killings, recommended a public inquiry into the death.

Downing Street said Mr Cameron told the Finucanes that investigations by Judge Cory and John Stevens, then deputy chief constable of Cambridgeshire Police, demonstrated there had been state collusion in the murder.

A spokeswoman said: "He (Mr Cameron) accepted these conclusions and on behalf of the Government he apologised to the family. He confirmed that the Government's priority was to get to the truth in the best and most effective way. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will set out the details of this process shortly."